


The Case of the Missing Pendant

by natmerc



Category: The Dresden Files (TV series)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Gen Fic, Magic, POV Male Character, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 20:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natmerc/pseuds/natmerc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a woman hires Harry Dresden to find her missing pendant, it seems like an easy case, but he should have known better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Missing Pendant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [binz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/binz/gifts).



> I'd like to thank Perri (neonhummingbird on LJ) and Kim (threerings on LJ) for their helpful comments and suggestions on making this story better. Thank you.

When I wake up in the morning, my first thought isn't "who will walk through my door today?," or even "what case can I solve?" Instead, it's more like "blearragheghar" with flailing hand motions towards my fourth alarm clock of the year. The latest one is shaped like a rooster, and crows the morning with an intensity that inspires me to shut the damn thing up -- or to throw it across the room, depending on how bad my day was yesterday.

This morning it crowed, more shrill than ever, and I was a half-second away from trying to aim at the same spot the previous alarm clock had met its demise when my hand must have moved against the off switch and it shut up mid-crow.

Quiet reigned. I blinked, then wiped at the crud at the corner of my eye and tossed the clock back onto the side table.

"You have an appointment in twenty-eight minutes, your majesty."

"Go away." I squinted. Bob's head was halfway through the wall on the right, framed on the left by an oatmeal-brown sweater hanging on a hook and on the right by a black scrying mirror tacked to the wall. I should throw that mirror out. I'd never been good at foretelling the future. Maybe my subconscious was just trying to protect me since my future was usually rotten.

"Oh, no. You commanded me last night, and I quote your words directly, because it is one of the trials of my life to have an excellent memory..." Bob walked through the wall, his outline momentarily fringed with light and then stood by my bed. He tapped at his temple. "'Don't let me sleep in. I'm late with the rent.'" Bob sighed mournfully. "Centuries of wisdom, and I am being used as a back-up alarm clock."

I thought about throwing the rooster through him. Bob smirked at me, as if he knew what I was thinking, and maybe he did. That was the problem with living with someone who'd known you most of your life; they knew you.

"Go away." I repeated.

Bob shifted, one hand buffing the nails of one hand against his vest. "You now have an appointment in twenty-seven minutes."

I watched sleepily as he strolled away and down the stairs, walking around objects he could have simply walked through. His voice trailed behind him.

"Twenty-six minutes."

The bastard was going to sound off the minutes.

My head ached. I rubbed at it, my hand scraping against the bristle of 5-day old beard that I didn't have time to shave. I grabbed at the sweater hanging on the wall. I'd only worn it a few times. I sniffed it cautiously then dropped it on the floor and went into the closet to pick out some different clothes when it failed the sniff test.

Minutes passed as I took a quick shower, with Bob's echoing voice announcing each one. I dressed quickly and ran my hands through my hair to make it spike up in the way that I liked. When you had less hair every day, you had to have fun while you could.

"Thirteen minutes."

"Yes, Bob!" I yelled. "That's great, Bob! I get the point. I won't ask you again."

Sunlight was streaming through the front door, making lines across the cross from the decals in the window. I could almost make out what it said on the floor, but not quite. The "Wizard" part was blurry and "Harry" was blocked by something else outside. I unlocked the door, switched the sign to "OPEN," and then hurried back to the small kitchen at the back.

"Twelve minutes."

"I'm going to kill you."

"I am already dead, cursed and doomed to serve the owner of my skull for all of eternity, however inane or inept they may be."

"Inept just happens to be me, so quit it."

"Yes, Master. As you command, Master. All your wishes are mine to serve, Master."

I grabbed a pop-tart out of the box, thought about eating it unheated, then took out another one and put them into the toaster. It was an old mechanical one; no fancy bagel features for me. The metal inside it soon glowed red and cheerful, while I wished that I could find another old microwave with a turn-style timer instead of the new ones with their microcircuits that blew whenever I came near. The old ones were getting harder to find.

"Eleven minutes." Bob smiled. "Or is that one minute? It is hard to keep track of time when you are incorporeal and your most recent owner never bothers to reset the clocks accurately."

The bells on the front door chimed as it opened. My pop tarts popped. "Dammitalltotheninelevelsofhell."

The voice on the phone yesterday had been smoldering, soft and very classy. She'd refused to give me any details on the phone, insisting on meeting first thing the next morning. In my head, she'd been a knockout brunette, thirtyish, and with a penchant for 4-inch heels.

The woman who walked through my door might've been a brunette about forty, fifty years ago or a thousand years ago, but those days were long gone. She wore a blue suit that looked like it cost more than a year's rent, expertly applied make-up, and more lines on her face than I could remember seeing on anyone still walking around and not relegated to a nursing home.

"Miss? Ma'am?"

"Mrs. Henderson. Mrs. Alinda Henderson."

I waved her towards my good guest chair, the one that didn't squeak, and I went to sit behind my desk, trying to remember what she'd said yesterday. "You mentioned something was missing?"

The wrinkles rearranged downward and her lips pursed. "My opal pendant. It's gone."

I blinked. "You didn't just misplace it?"

She sighed. "I wore that pendant every day for fifty years, Mr. Dresden. No. I did not misplace it. Some miscreant stole it from me."

Waves of displeasure fairly sizzled the air around her. "Have you contacted the police?"

"Yes."

The waves intensified upward three notches. "They made me fill out a report," she hissed. "I need that pendant back, Mr. Dresden. Immediately."

"My fees are five hun..." I paused, not even getting to mention expenses. Mrs. Henderson had reached into the small alligator purse by her side, and pulled out a silver money clip that seemed to be filled with nothing but hundreds. She pulled off the money and tossed the small pile on my desk. It fanned out in an amazingly rent-paying swirl of green.

"That's three thousand. There's a thousand more if you can find it by midnight tomorrow." She reached into her purse again, pulling out a picture, and a small lock of hair, and a creamy business card. The hair was brown. "That is a picture of the piece and a lock of my hair."

"Um..."

"Do not disappoint me, Mr. Dresden." Steel blue eyes slammed into mine. "Or you will regret it."

She had to tug twice at the door, her frail body not obeying her immediately, but her heels clicked steadily as she left.

Why did I feel that this was not going to be a good day?

* * * * *

Two pop-tarts later, I'd opened the door to my secret spell-casting room, and was flipping through a couple of spell-books thoughtfully. I picked up the picture again. It showed a more youthful-looking Mrs. Henderson, not more than forty, with a silver, intricate chain and a large blue pendant that looked to be over an inch long -- it looked expensive without being flashy. Mrs. Henderson's black evening dress merged into the blurry background, and looked vaguely amused at something, and her brown hair was swept up in an elegant fashion.

"Did you see her?" I asked. I rubbed the small lock of hair through my fingers, wondering how old it was, and why Mrs. Henderson would bother to give me an old lock of her head instead of her current silvered version.

There was a moment's silence, then Bob walked into the center of the room, eyeing me thoughtfully. I hadn't really known he was there – it's not like I could hear him breathing or anything, but it was a educated guess. Bob might be centuries dead, but he was still curious as ten dead cats.

"Mrs. Henderson has a very interesting aura."

"Hmm." I flipped another page, waiting for him to continue. Bob was always better at auras than I was; being dead helped.

"Layered almost, with thin striations of black and gold. The central portion, closest to her body, was clean of them."

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about or what that could mean. "Okay."

He sighed, then walked over to the far wall and rested his index finger near the spine of one of the books there. It was an old one that I'd taken from my uncle's library after I... after his death.

"The striations could indicate a long-term stress on her natural aura, as if she'd been under the effects of a powerful spell for a very long time period." He tilted his head to one side, his short white hair not moving as he did so. "The pendant, perhaps. That would explain the difference closest to her life-force, and why she sought out a wizard for its return instead of trusting in the vagaries of the city's boys-in-blue."

I tossed the base ingredients for the tracking spell into my smallest cauldron and took out a fresh crystal from my stores. It looked to be my last one. With the rate I was going through them, I'd have to buy a few more this time; maybe Madame Chen would give me a discount. The memory of the three thousand dollars fanning across my desk gave me a sick feeling in my gut, although I'd tucked it away already. Too much money always led to too much trouble.

"No, no, no – not the lemongrass." The look Bob threw me added 'you idiot' although he didn't say it this time. "You don't want to track Mrs. Henderson, you want the pendant. Use the dragon's tooth powder."

"That's damn expensive stuff." I grumbled, but I got it out, then tossed the smallest pinch I could into the now bubbling brown goo on the table. It looked disgusting, but I'd had to drink worse in the past. At least it wasn't poisonous.

I picked up the picture, and focused my attention on the pendant. It seemed to shimmer slightly as I pulled energy up through my center, visualizing a couple of chakra points along the way to help speed it along, and aimed it at the crystal just as I let it slip into the liquid. Pendant pendant pendant pendant....

When I lifted the crystal out, sludge coated the bottom third of the leather tie that was wrapped around the crystal, but it slipped off the crystal itself like it was coated in Teflon. A strong blue flare moved along its length; I felt pressure in my hand as the crystal and then the leather moved to align with what I really hoped was the pendant, and not whatever remained of Mrs. Henderson's black evening gown deep in a landfill, or the bit of doorknob I'd made out in the picture background. I wiped at the sludge with my right hand, rubbing it off and flicking it back into the pot, then wiped my hand down on my pants.

"That'll do it." I said confidently. "I'll wrap this up before noon at this rate."

"Hmm," Bob murmured noncommittally. "Do be careful and keep yourself from being murdered. I would not care for Morgan deciding to lock me up for a century or two for safekeeping."

"Will do."

Without a backward glance, I headed towards the exit, pausing to shrug into my old green army jacket. It was awkward because I didn't want to let go of the crystal, but the coat was big and it wasn't much of a problem holding it as I slipped my arm down the sleeve.

"Take your wand."

"Yes, Miss Worrywart."

I stopped as the door closed behind me, slipping the drum stick up my sleeve and into its resting place, then pausing to feel the tug and pull of the crystal and weighing my options. Walking would be best and easiest, but it felt too far away for that. I contemplated the El and then dismissed it. Too hard to backtrack and judge directions. It would have to be the Jeep.

I don't recommend driving with an activated tracking crystal in your hand. It jiggles and waves and is altogether distracting. You think talking on a cell phone is bad, try having your guts lurch if you head too far in the wrong direction or have a hard time keeping down your pop tarts because you have to go another block before you can turn a corner.

Traffic wasn't light, but it wasn't heavy either, since it was past rush hour, and it got lighter as I headed towards the outskirts of the city. The houses were getting bigger and the amount of grass around them looked more like small parks when the feeling in my gut changed and I could tell I was very close. I had to stop thinking about the three, maybe four, thousand that I could get from this. The money was enough to dig myself out of my hole for back rent and set aside some for emergencies like needing another bottle of dragon's teeth powder or a salamander burning up my kitchen, but it was too much money for a simple tracking job.

The crystal was humming gently; a low pitched sound that was almost too soft to hear. When I pulled into a long driveway, I knew I'd found the right place. The iron gates at the entrance were open. The place was big, with lawns rolling on forever, and trees and bushes planted symmetrically along the long smooth driveway. It was the sort of place with butlers, and maids that lived upstairs, and chefs instead of cooks. I'd spent most of my teen years in a place like this, both loving and hating it.

I reached the front and parked the Jeep. It was quiet, too quiet. The sun was bathing the world around me with warmth, and the green grass rippled in a light breeze. Everything seemed very precise and peaceful. The crystal was pointing straight at the house. This was going to be a breeze of a case. Dammit. Why did I think that again? I shouldn't have thought that; everything always goes to hell afterwards. I slipped the pendant into my left pocket, still holding onto the leather strip.

The door-bell rang with a series of gongs that died off slowly. Then I waited for what seemed like forever, but was more like two minutes. My finger was on the button, ready to ring it again, when the massive oak door opened. A very grim looking man in his sixties, all dressed out in a black and white outfit like something out of a 1930s movie, stood looking at me disapprovingly.

"Yes, sir?"

"Hi. My name's Harry Dresden. I'm a... private investigator, and I've been hired to locate an object." With my left hand trapped in my pocket, I pulled out the picture I'd been given by Mrs. Henderson and showed it to the butler. "See that pendant there? Have you seen it before?"

He sniffed. "Mr. Dresden. That is a picture of Mrs. Henderson. That is her pendant."

"Uh, yeah."

"This is the Henderson residence."

"Okay." The crystal in my pocket was still pointing straight inside. If Mrs. Henderson was going to pay me four grand to find a pendant that had slipped behind a dresser, that was fine by me. "Can I speak with Mrs. Henderson?"

"May you?"

"May I speak with Mrs. Henderson?" This guy was worse than Bob, but I also had a suspicion that his English accent was fake.

He stared at me for a moment, assessing the Army surplus jacket and the sneakers that had seen better days. "Follow me, sir." Then he led me to a small waiting room. I satisfied my curiosity about the carpet (Turkish) and the cigars in the box on the desk (Cuban), then just watched the crystal as it moved slowly one way then another, paused, and then settled down. I dropped the crystal into my pocket. I didn't need it anymore.

The door opened and Mrs. Henderson walked in. Fortyish, dressed in a tailored brown suit with a sky blue shirt, and wearing the pendant.

She looked just like her picture.

* * * * *

As awkward conversations go, telling Mrs. Henderson that a Mrs. Henderson had hired me to find the pendant that Mrs. Henderson was currently wearing went quite well. She was coldly polite and dismissive. I was awkward and uncertain.

I also badly wanted a closer look at the pendant. The blue stone in it seemed almost black, the way it absorbed the light falling on it, and there seemed to be glyphs in the silver casing surrounding it. When I asked, because if you don't ask you don't know, Mrs. Henderson told me that no, I couldn't hold her pendant, and then she rang the bell for Mr. Butler-what's-his-name.

Making conversation, I asked her what she did for a living, and she told me that her husband controlled several corporations and she managed his social duties. Her dark brown eyes weren't amused at all, but neither were they angry or scared. Instead, she looked patient and watchful, like a lizard waiting for lunch to wander into its path.

"You sure I can't hold it for just a minute?"

"Yes," Mrs. Henderson said. "Please leave now, or I shall be forced to call the police."

She was standing by the door, waiting for me to leave, when I did something very, very rude. I'd palmed my wand while waiting for the butler to come back, and as I stepped close to her, I reached out my hand, the wand sticking out a inch further than my fingers, and tapped the end to the center stone of the pendants.

For the record, explosions? Not pleasant.

* * * * *

When I woke up a few minutes or hours later, my head was killing me, all the little hairs on the back of my right hand appeared singed, and the nail on my pinkie finger was rapidly turning black. I straightened up, working the kinks out of my back, and looked around the room. The desk was tipped over, cigars were spilled on the floor, and another small couch was pushed back. I stumbled over, spotting a bit of familiar brown cloth and looked down.

There was a brown suit laid out on the floor, the inside and outside covered in a fine coating of ash. Near the top, nestled in the folds of a blue shirt, was the pendant.

Feeling like a murderer and not altogether sure that I wasn't, I picked the pendant up, and slipped it into my pocket. Then I booked, wishing I hadn't given the butler my name and wondering if Morgan was going to draw and quarter me any second. I know he didn't really teleport, but it sure seemed like he could pop up anytime he wanted and point a sword at my throat. I didn't see the butler on the way out, and that suited me fine.

The pendant in my pocket seemed like a lead weight. I stayed carefully under the speed limit all the way back to my office.

The bell jangled as I opened the door and limped inside, heading straight for my spell room. Bob was inside, reading; his head partly inside one of the spell books and moving back and forth. At my entrance, he jerked back and turned towards me – his suit was perfect, but his suit was always perfect. One of the benefits of being a ghost was no need to worry about explosions messing up your clothes.

"Bad day?"

"Shut up, Bob." I pulled out the pendant and shoved it in his face. "Now tell me everything."

Bob blinked. "That made less sense than the time you told me to hold your cufflinks the night of your prom."

"I'm serious, Bob." I pulled out what remained of my wand. The top third was missing, and the rest of it was charred. I'd spotted it on my way out, lucky for me, as I hadn't even thought to look for it. Most cops would just bag and tag it for evidence, but if Murphy had been called to the scene, I'd be locked in a cell trying to figure out who I could call. "I touched the pendant with my wand and there was an explosion of something. When I woke up, Mrs. Henderson was nothing but ash.

"You killed your client? Really, Harry. Did you not learn better in that detective course you took?"

"That wasn't Mrs. Henderson that came to see us this morning, and the real Mrs. Henderson is nothing but ash, Bob. No body. No body bits either. It was like she disintegrated."

Bob murmured noncommittally, and then peered down at the pendant. "The chain seems to be made of a silver composite, 18th century or so in style. I cannot date the pendant, but it seems older." He looked at the pendant for a long time. "Flip it over to the other side." When Harry did, he pointed to a small line of letters along the back. "See those?"

I squinted. I'd learned how to decipher a lot of different languages over the years. "German?"

"Germanic at least. Not modern. It seems to be a ward of some type -- a protection spell or an enclosure."

"That was no protection spell."

My bells on my door sounded. Three guesses who it was. Now if I could only figure out what it was. "You keep looking at the pendant," I flipped it back over, "see if you can figure out those symbols there."

As I expected, Mrs. Henderson senior was standing just inside the entrance, a small woman that filled up the room anyway, still wearing the same blue suit. Instead of the grim lines of annoyance, the lines had rearranged to a look of grim satisfaction.

"Mr. Dresden. I wish to congratulate you on your speedy recovery of my pendant."

"Mrs....," I hesitated. "Mrs. Henderson. Why did you hire me?"

"I needed you to get me my pendant."

"Your pendant? The woman in the picture you gave me. That wasn't you forty or eighty years ago, that was the real Mrs. Henderson."

"I'm the real Mrs. Henderson." She smiled. Half her teeth were missing, and the remainder seemed sharper than normal.

"I give you the pendant, and you leave?" My wand was no good anymore. I took a step back, edging towards my hockey staff; it still had a charge on it from a couple days ago. The wrinkles seemed to flow across her face in waves and I realized that she was smiling. She no longer seemed like a stiff breeze could blow her away, although she hadn't grown any taller. Her eyes, before a dark brown that was almost black, now had tinge of red.

"Ghoul?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Now give me the pendant."

I thought of the money. I thought of that layer of ash spread out on the floor. I thought of Morgan popping in and spearing me through the gut for accidentally killing someone.

"No. I'm giving it to the High Council."

Her eyes tracked left and right, then narrowed as she spotted the hallway towards the back and my hidden room. The hidden room with the door wide open. She started towards it, and I ran to my hockey staff then raced to block her.

She raised her hand, a large silver ring glowing with a red fire.

"Dammit." I readied my staff, enclosed myself in a shield, and then immediately had to reinforce it as waves of what looked like red lightning speared from the ring, hitting my shield over and over again. One bounced, hit the wall and then struck me in the leg. "Argh!" My leg felt like it had been hit by lighting, with the pain spreading out throughout my body. I stumbled back, my back hitting the wall and then I sank down, my legs going numb and no longer supporting me.

"Bob! She's heading your way!" Bob wouldn't be able to hide the pendant or even pick it up. I hoped Mrs. Whoever-she-was couldn't hurt him or that he'd have the sense to hide. I reached towards my staff where it had dropped an arms length away, and used it to lever myself up. I'd staggered halfway down the hall when she reappeared.

Mrs. Henderson reappeared. Slim, elegant, fortyish – and wearing the blue-stone silver pendant. Bob was trailing behind her, walking a couple of careful paces back. Two-thousand-year-old Mrs. Henderson was now holding-at-forty Mrs. Henderson, in all but the suit, and for all I knew, that was Mrs. Henderson's as well.

"What happened to her? Did I kill her?"

"That was a shell, as I am a shell. But she refused to add her layer to mine." She smiled widely, her mouth full of teeth all sharper than they should be. "It is a game we play, but she tried to change the rules of the game this time. So I took it by force."

"How?" My hand hurt, my legs hurt and my head was pounding. I wished I'd never woken up that morning.

"The hair I gave you for your tracking spell. That was hers. It left a residue on your hand, which also left a residue on the wand that you touched us with. That broke the shell. I am now her, and she is me. Mrs. Alinda Henderson."

I thought about trying to stop her somehow. Behind her, Bob watched both of us. He caught my eye, shaking his head as if he knew what I was thinking. Maybe he did.

"I'll tell the High Council."

"You do that. They will do nothing."

"Dangerous creature, going around killing wives of some rich guy who's probably important – I think they'll do something."

Her brown eyes, cold and dismissive, reached into her purse and drew out the money clip again. She peeled off ten bills and then dropped them at my feet. "As promised. You fulfilled our contract. Do not imagine yourself my enemy, Mr. Dresden. You were a tool." Her heels were clipped and confident as she walked past me, paused by my desk to put something on top, and then out of the office, never looking back.

"That, Harry, was a very dangerous creature."

"Understate some more." I limped over to the desk, stepping over the scattered bills on the floor, then collapsed into my chair and started brushing off the ash that still covered parts of my coat. "Did I murder someone today?"

"No, Harry. Neither of them are really alive." He paused. "If there was any real Mrs. Henderson or Mrs. Hensonsons, she, or they, died a very long time ago. What you saw was both more and less than a trapped spirit like me. An elemental being given flesh."

"And Mr. Henderson? Mr. Corporate America? Does he know his wife is an animated corporeal spirit imitating a ghoul? 'Cause I'd sure want to know that sort of thing about the woman I slept with at night."

"The markings on the pendant both contain and control her essence. In all likelihood, Mr. Henderson knows all about her." Bob paused. "Do you feel a need to ask him?"

I thought about that. Bob knew all about having to obey someone whether you wanted to or not. I owned his skull. No matter how he got back at me, and he was smart enough to think of a million ways to annoy me, he still had to obey my direct commands.

This was High Council stuff. If I wasn't sure that Ancient Mai wanted to kill me, I'd tell her. Morgan wanted to kill me too, but only part of the time. Maybe I'd tell him. My stomach rumbled. Breakfast was long gone. It was just past lunch. My day wasn't even half over.

The bell on my door jingled, announcing more unexpected company. It was just another day in the life of Harry Dresden, Wizard. I looked up to see who it was this time.


End file.
